I just wish they would drop the exception for politicians. After all they are just trying to sell you something like every other telemarketer, the only difference is that what they are selling is themselves. Of course the politicians would never allow a law or regulation to pass that would impact their ability to annoy people while begging for your money and your vote.

They also need to extend the do not call registry to include sending unwanted advertising text messages to cell phones. After all, not everyone has a messaging plan on their cell phone and those texts end up costing the person receiving them money.

telemarketers using up your cell phone minutes should be forced to pay back the time they've used.

Hi this is Racheal from "Card Services"...swear i wish i could reach thru the damn phone and smack whoever the hell is running this damn scam. I recieved calls at home and on my cell phone for the last two years about once a week. I think they have started a whole new recording based on the call i got yesturday, which i am sure is the same scam, since its basicly saying the same crap, just a different voice. AND my home and cell phone have been on the do not call lists, both national and state since they were started. I almost had to file a lawsuit with Dish Network as i was getting 3 calls a day from them for 3 months straight and i had NEVER had business with them. RUDE, mean and disrespectful called the headquarters to complain. They tried to tell me they had no control over what their franchise did and wouldn't help me until i made it clear that if i EVER got another call from them i would suit for every penny i could, request criminal changes for EVERY STORE under the name of Dish Network that called me, which there were so many i could never count, and would file complaints with the FCC and federal Trade commission, BBB, etc and that my mission in life would be to see the company go bankrupt. Oddly enough i haven't had a single call from Dish network since.

I'm surprised they haven't tried some B/S line that "Corporations are people and therefore are making "Person to Person" calls.

See, government IS useful sometimes.

Especially when it's us 'real people' vs. corporations.

And, RwEvans and everyone else should file a complaint with the FCC if they receive a telemarketing call. It's easy to do on their website, and when they get enough complaints they'll actually do something about these pesky mosquitos. This is why Ron Paul is wrong.

Robocalling needs to be entirely outlawed.

.

Agreed. For charities and political orgs too. It's no better than driving through the neighborhood with a bullhorn at 3 a.m.

#firstworldproblems

Sent from my iPhone

Real, i did complain...have every time it has happened...how much did it help?..NONE... It wasn't until i went to the headquarters and was ready to sue for everything and their underwear that they stopped.

I hate picking up the phone to get" we have a message for you please hold on" If you are not polite enough to be on the phone when you call me you shouldn't be calling me. I pay the phone bill not xyz company. It's my phone not theirs.

cool Ed

sent from my keyboard

"Hi!, My name is Rachel from Cardholder Services!" God, I'd love to get my hands on her neck and wring that chirpy little voice right out of it.

^ OMG! If I had a dollar for every time I got the Cardholder Services call ......

I have equipment that screens, identifies and terminates telemarketer calls automatically. The only thing I need to do now is find a way to tell them to take a flying "F" at a rolling do-nut before the call is cut off.

I myself have never had the slightest hesitation in hanging up on a computer. I never listen to a recording.

The only method to get them to stop calling is to say "I can't talk right now, can you give me a phone number where I can call you back and talk?"

The caller will immediately tell you that they will delete you from their calling lists and you'll never hear from them again.

The phone number you see on your caller ID is a sham number. It has nothing to do with the company's phone system. When you ask for a call-back number they know they can be traced and thus reported to the FCC or FTC for complaint action.

Always ask for a number where you can call them back! That's the only solution.

Or, you could ask her "what are you wearing?"

One time I stayed on the line for "Rachel"....I started to drill the person. "Why are you calling me? Did I tell you to call me? You shouldn't call me if I did not tell you to call? Who told you you could call me..." I went on and on and on....finally they said "sorry m'am" and I have not heard from them since!

Sounds like this is against the first amendment. Free speech and all. All those saying that there should be no control on guns at all should be up in arms about this. Plus, why do charities and politicians get a pass? It is ok for the politician, but not for some company?

If it is an actual person on the other end I either scream into the phone and hang up or I keep them on the phone and have them tell me all the details. Then at the end I tell them I am not interested.

Put # on the us trade comm. do not call list, if they call back after you told them, turn it in to the trade comm., it stops almost all of their calls, have not got one in 8 months.

888-382-1222

I report callers to the do-not-call-list every time I get an unsolicited call. It is just recently they have been recorded and their phone number has been blocked.

DaleP; why is your personal phone on at work?

I like the political calls - I get to tell them just exactly what I think of their candidate...also, don't come to my door trying to sell Jesus - you will get questions in return like; why does the Bible use scare tactics like Hell, on little kids?

When does that new law on TV commercials being too loud, go into affect? Between Vonage and their "oh oh" and that squealing pig, I can't get to the mute button fast enough...can you hook up "The Clapper" to a TV mute button?

I have been getting these robo call from credit consolation company after I told them take me off their list...they told me they don't have a list, just an application, and they will delete it. I said yes, please do, now i get these damn robo calls 3-4 times a week on my cell phone!!! WTF

The only thing more controlling than this is the holes that put my number on the DNC list without my knowledge or consent and no I never called them. I'm sure it really helps with the identity theft and extortion that they're doing on me though. They should also do something about half robo calls. The ones that start to repeat themselves constantly but when you ask am I speaking with a real person a live person comes on the phone. I do not like to interfere with others work and unfortunately criminals don't care about any list they never have. If we had a list of white collar criminals in the USA that included last known photo before latest plastic surgery we might be getting somewhere.

Lately I've been getting calls and its some broken message from an automated system. I no idea what the @!$%# they want and when you call it back its busy.. WTF?

I just answer the phone, and if it's a telemarketer (electronic or otherwise) I set the phone down on the nearest flat surface and go on about my business. Next time I'm in the area I make sure the phone is hung up. I don't get many return calls.

Kev- nice Rush avatar...I forgot I recently turned off the profanity filter - had to do a double take when I saw f— not censored...lol.

A few months ago I got a call trying to get my credit card number - so I randomly enter the correct number of digits...it said I entered an invalid number - no @!$%# Sherlock.

I just wish they would drop the exception for politicians.

Absolutely. When Ron Paul was in NH, his robocall system called several times a day. Even after I answered his idiotic survey in a negative way, they still called. emails to their headquarters were useless and unanswered.

His campaign was the worst of them all.

This new law will just as meaningless as the current one. The most bothersome and frequent calls are from politicians and charities and they are exempt from all the laws/rules.

Allowing campaign elections to call you is a real pain, which should never be allowed. Calls were coming in constantly from other states. In one evening, there were 67 calls during and after our meal. In the past, TV's was bad enough and remained off. But now we're forced to turn the phone down as-well-as not answering any calls with an unrecognizable number.

Tell them you are busy give me your home number and I Will call you back later this evening! on a more serious note they should just outlaw those harassing marketing methods, I cant understand half the broken English anyways, My bank is the biggest violator most calls come from companies that by the info from them. you could always find a way to have some vengeful fun with them like"" what are you wearing !"I meant what are you wearing under that!"" just take it from their. its OK!, they can't turn you in if they call you! in time you might get to the point that you can't wait till they call, have fun with it. first complement them on their voice, then start asking them personnel questions, hair color, eyes, weight, just take over the conversation and make it as uncomfortable as possible, tell them you have something for them, maybe they will put you on a caution do not call this person list. waste their time, piss them off, embarrass them. it feels better when they hang up on you.

When Republican parties call, I tell them I just became a Democrat because of their call. Then vice versa for Democrats. Get them real confused then no one bothers me again.

lonereb

I hate picking up the phone to get" we have a message for you please hold on" If you are not polite enough to be on the phone when you call me you shouldn't be calling me. I pay the phone bill not xyz company. It's my phone not theirs.

LOL I wait with a very unpleasant message for the a-holes.. Trust me the last set from India that called for over 2 weeks straight twice an hour on the hour I blasted him and he thought I was a terrorist and I am shocked i didnt have the CIA and others at my door with the threats i made.. My head was spinning and i was spewing racially charged hateful threats..

I would totally post them here but I like my newsvine account..

Don't forget the Republican backed Chamber of Commerce wants to allow robo-callers to your cell phone:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/politics-other-controversies/1447725-new-bill-would-allow-robo-calls-2.html

There are things you need to remember about telemarketers which you can do to screw them over. The first is they are on a leash to make every call count. This means if you can keep them on the line and talk about anything/everything under the sun...you are going to cause them get written up/fired by their manager. Another way to do this is hand the phone over to a preschooler and let the kid talk their head off to whoever's on the line.

The second is to have fun with telemarketers. Had one call years ago and kept saying over and over "No habla English". When they start going into Spanish...they would get "No habla Espanol". They hung up and called back. At that time...kept asking them over and over if they spoke Russian or German.

Whatever you do...if you have the time/inclination...screw with them and never let them get a word in edgewise.

Additional reference:

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2011/12/12/9397008-bill-would-permit-robo-calls-to-your-cell-phone

Hey, the commercials are good for one thing: when I'm working on something and start to doze off at one in the morning, all I need is the sound of the JOSEPH A. BANK commercial and I get right back to it.

I tell them from the start that I'm going to save them some time and that I'm not interested. If they don't get the point and still try to sell me something. I just set the phone down for about a min and let them do thier spill. I pick the phone back up and ask them to repeat what they had just said because my phone went out. and when they start thier spill again. I set the phone back down again and wait 2 mins pick the phone back up if they have not hung up by then. I ask them to repeat what they had just said again because I had to put my phone down for a sec and missed some of what they had just said. Once they start thier spill again I put the phone back down and wait another 5 mins and I pick the phone back up. By this time they useally have all hang up. I had Only one stay on untill I got back on the phone and he asked why did I do that to him My reply was I told you from the start that I was going to save you some time and that I'm not interested in what your selling since you want to waste my time I figure I'll just waste Yours too. And I hung up. They never call me back after that. HEHEHE Now the robo calls I just hang up on as soon as I hear please wait.

YES!!! Finally!!! I'm so tired of hearing, "Hi!, My name is Rachel from Cardholder Services!" too. Wow, the chick is everywhere. I'd say I'm glad I'm not the only one (misery likes company) but Rachel is relentless. I love some of the ideas on here. This past fall & winter I was being pestered by some company offering to sell or rent my timeshare. I kept telling them to take me off their calling list but they kept calling anyway. One of the last times they called I asked the guy who introduced himself as Matthew Johnson (he had a very thick Indian accent) where he was calling from. He respond that he was in Alexandria, Va. I asked to speak w/ one of his co-workers so he hands the phone to the guy next to him, who also had a thick Indian accent. I asked him his name and where he was. He too gave me some totally American, whitebread name and said that he was in Philadelphia, Pa. I laughed and told him that it was quite interesting that he was it Philly, Pa when the guy standing next to him was in Va. I told him his name was not John Smith and he said, "Are you calling me a liar?" and I said yep. They don't call me any more.

I've been pushing numbers randomly on the phone when they call. IF I get a female I drop the voice an octave or 2 and go into "heavy breathing"..."WHAT ARE YOU WEARING?..." and let the conversation get more "interesting" from there. Funny thing - since THEY called ME it isn't an "obscene phone call". I can get downright obscene when i "feel" like it. I've been wondering how to use the same tactic with guys...

I'm also trying to copy the "disconnected umber" sound to the front of my answering machine message - just too lazy, I guess, to do a double recording, play the tone and then the generic "Please leave a message after the tone"... oh well.

I hate goddamm telemarketers.

I used to toy with a lot of these people but in fact, most of them are here in the US. It is a horribly crappy job, but it's what they are stuck doing for a living. so now on the occasion that I do inadvertently answer one I'll usually say something like, "I apologize for the fact that you have such a horrible job and that I'm not interested in anything you are selling, good bye." Then hang up immediately.

Usually, I just don't answer if I don't recognize the number. If it is something important from someone who needs to talk with me, they will leave a message. My phone allows setting distinctive rings, and everyone I know or that is a legitimate caller, gets assigned an identifiable ring. Otherwise it gets the default ring. That way, even if I don't look at the number, I can tell by the ring that it's probably some BS call. After half a dozen attempts and getting no answer, it seems like most just give up trying. I'm sure there is something that tracks this automatically and eventually you'll end up deleted from their call list because it seems like after enough no answers, they quit calling.

Another trick you can use if you feel like spending the time, is to pre-record that phone company message that says that the number they've reached is no longer in service. You can find this on the internet too. There are some electronic tones associated with that message that can be interpreted as a bad number and you get pulled from the list. I've got a couple wave files of these on my computer. Pretty easy to put a direct shortcut link on your desktop. Answer the call and immediately play the message into the mouthpiece, then hang up. I've heard that most of the robo-call based systems recognize the tones and delete the number from their list automatically. There were actually some devices out there that did this automatically, not sure if any really work. You can also use it as your answering machine message as long as people you know understand that it's actually you and wait, then leave their message.

It's one of those things that usually I just ignore anymore, but then sometimes if I'm in a PO'd mood I might just answer and give the caller an ear full. But for the most part, I feel sorry for a lot of the people on the other end of the phone who must do this for a living. Seems to me that they must be pretty desperate to take one of these telemarketing jobs.

The trick that worked for me:  Say the single word "yes" to every question the caller has, and also at the end of every sentence or pregnant pause.  The telemarketers do not call me any more.  Have a little FUN with those losers -- say "yes" with a blank stare on your face.  Think comedian Steven Wright.  Makes it sound so much more effective.  But do not laugh. Just do it.  

God, I LVOE me.

All you have to do is answer your phone either "White House, how may I direct your call" or "Hello, FBI (or CIA), how may we help you", and the calls will cease immediately from that caller. You may need to ask if they want to speak to the president or director, if they don't hang up immediately

My girlfriend and I once received about 5 calls from Sprint in one night, even though we told them from the first call that we were not interested, and not to call back. The same lady kept calling again and again. Finally I told my girlfriend to let me answer it next time. Well, sure enough, she called back. I answered, and listened to her sales pitch. I sounded very excited about what she was selling, and then called for my wife so I could tell her about the great deal. The phone call then went like this:" Honey, Sprint has this great deal for us, and I want to sign up for it. Honey, what are you doing with that knife? Honey? Stop! No! Oh no! No honey, no." Then came sounds of stabbing and gurgling, and I hung up the phone. In about 5 minutes, the lady from Sprint called back. I let my girlfriend answer the phone after telling her what to say. The lady from Sprint asked her if everything was alright, and my girlfriend responded "Everything is just fine now" in a very psychopathic voice, and then hung up. We rolled on the floor laughing for about 20 minutes waiting for the cops to arrive but they didn't. Needless to say, we never ever heard from Sprint again. I am sure the sales lady needed counseling after that call. LMAO :-P

we get those calls all day, I have this simple solution, when someone calls and you don't want to listen to the crap, pick the phone up, and hang it up in one simple motion

Besides the call from "Rachel" I also get the texts that say I was approved for an instant $1500 loan. That pisses me off more than Rachel does!

I used to absolutely hate those telemarketing calls I would get years ago when I still had a landline. I really don’t see what the big deal is about the automated calls though. After all when I pick up the phone I say hello once or maybe twice but if I don’t get a reply within about 3 seconds I just hang up and never give it another thought – no harm no foul. Since those systems take about 8 seconds to pick up I never even hear the message. And if a friend of mine was trying to call me he or she will call back so why sweat it. If we can’t stop them from calling then I much prefer the automated calls. When a human salesman phones me on my cell phone that really pisses me off though.

I am never rude to a telemarketer.

I just say "No thanks" and hang up.

I feel sorry for anyone who has to work in that job.

Thanks, guys! Unfortunately, I know from experience that most people on the receiving end of the line don't share your philosophy. It was a full 10 years ago that I worked there and it still makes me cringe just thinking about it. And I broke like half their sales records, too! At least, before I "burned out", that is....

I just wish they would do something about the scammers that call themselves "credit card services" they call me at least twice a day. Everyone knows they are thieves who are phishing for credit card numbers. Being on The Do Not Call List does not help. If you get their call a robo voice says "Hi I am Rachael from credit card services" just hang up. If you hit what ever number they tell you to hit. You have just made a long distance call TO THEM. That means they can keep calling you AND THEY WILL!!!

I tell telemarketers to take me off their list. But either they don't listen or hang up before I can finish my sentence. Telling them to stop does not work. These new laws are necessary!

I beg to differ. I have been getting a call from the toll-free # of 866-897-2756 for a year now - constantly!They are calling for the party that used to have our telephone number 8 years ago, trying to sell them a vacation package. I've googled the phone number and found they are based in Florida. I have asked nicely REPEATEDLY to stop calling me and to take my number permanently off their calling list. They will not stop. So, what do you have to say about that?

What disgusts me is the call "Important information about your credit card balance..." I don't even HAVE a credit card! I've asked them to stop calling, threatened to turn them in, and everything else. Now they call my cell phone too. *sigh*

Terry: It doesn't matter whether you are a Republican or Democrat, or no affiliation - no one wants the calls. Don't politicize it.

Sorry, but if you don't pay your lawful debts your creditors have every right to try to collect from you. Most states have perfectly adequate safeguards in place against predatory collection tactics.

debnran - It is political, unfortunately.

The GOP wants to do away with federal regulatory agencies.

northlite, please stop insulting pigs.

debnran: It wasn't Terry doing the politicizing, but northlite above him. Some people just can't help themselves; partisan politics is like a disease.

I do not have my name or any personal info on my answering machine. I know that can be confusing to friends, but it works for telemarketers. I wish that it was even a person that answered the phone, then there are things I could do. (like speaking in a foreign language and pretending not to know that person) Instead most calls to me are by robots. I even had a "survey" call once that said in return I would get a free vacation. Obviously I did not take the survey, but in almost every case, these machines do not care and do not listen. I certainly am not going to wait for an actual person to answer the phone just so I can try to convince them not to call. Telemarketers are scum. I understand the need to find work, but when you go into the job, you know you are getting into a job that is very annoying to people. Frankly, when I rarely do actually talk to a person, if I cannot quickly fool them into not calling, I am not nice to them, nor am I overly rude. I am intentionally somewhat impatient and slightly unpleasant. I figure that while they are in a hard position, they also should get some other job. The pay might not be what they like, or the work might be unpleasant, but something else would be more honest.

You chose to work in an industry that is giving most of America the same headache. I get a minimum of 6 800 calls a day which I don't answer because my cable has caller ID. I still get to listen to my phone ring everytime especially when I try to nap. Maybe 1 time a week I get a call from family

Why shouldn't a debt collector be able to call a cell phone. There are many antiquated limitations put on ligitimate collection agencies. Most agencies follow the rules. At the end of the day, collection agencies provide a service that employees people, provides a necessary service, puts money into the economy and pays taxes. Their services saves average americans, that pays their bills, money. Who do you think would pay for these losses if the collection agency did not collect the debt.

Kris - I'm curious if anyone EVER buys anything from telemarketers or did you strictly get cussed at and hung up on all day with no sales? I'd just like to know how telemarketing can be profitable and why it still exists given the amount of vitriol most people feel toward those phone calls. Can you give me any insight?

Thanks!

Bruce
The calls from 'Credit Card Services' with 'information about you credit card balance' are not from debit collectors. They seem to be some sort of debt consolidation service. I keep getting the calls but I have no credit card debt so I know they're robo calls.

The article was pointing to telemarketers, (SALES) not collections (Debts). Telemarketers can call all they want, just leave the phone off the hook after you answer it, let the robo dialer talk, or better yet, do something like this person does.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fl5uhjJFTiE

Robocaller or real person, I will just hang up the phone. If I want your product or service, I will seek you out for it.

I'm ALWAYS rude to a telemarketer. WHY NOT?

They took the job - and THEY are annoying me, so why not return the favor?

The idea is to get them to NEVER CALL BACK. You don't do that by being NICE. Like I said earlier, I get about as vile as I can be with them. Hopefully, the message gets around. DON'T CALL MY NUMBER OR ELSE BE PREPARED FOR VERBAL ABUSE!

@ Kris Craig:

"The problem isn't the telemarketers themselves; it's the companies that employ them."

Isn't that somewhat akin to saying "The problem isn't the assassins themselves; it's the people that employ them"?

I'm perfectly capable of finding anything I want to buy and doing the research to make sure I get a good bargain for my buck.

To my thinking, my phone is like my door: If I don't wanna answer it, I don't. But that doesn't lessen the PITA (Pain In The A$$) aspect of someone who wants to earn money at the expense of my privacy, my time, and my enjoyment of my domicile.

I'm in favor of deporting all telemarketers.

Of course, I'm also in favor of the death penalty for driving whilst using your cell phone, so perhaps I'm not the best one to make that decision.

Or AM I???

Mr R, Tom Mabe is SO EXCELLENT! He has really funny clips on YourTube.

JAC -- I'll bet I know the company you're trying to deal with! The deadbeats that used to have my phone number had owned a timeshare with them and they called me 4-5 times every day. When I told them I wasn't Mike or Althea, take this number off their list, I was told that I wasn't authorized to have it removed, since my name wasn't on the account.

ARGH!

I finally went onto the FCC DNC complaint site and filed a complaint (actually 3 for each day) for every single day for the last three months. It took all afternoon, but I was fired up! I had the company name and number. It took about another week, but they quit calling me. Probably took that long for the complaints to be processed.

Yeah, I have a cell phone so I don't even give or answer the home phone. One ringer will be left on in a room we hardly go into, so we can hear the phone faintly ring incase it's something worth answering and look at the caller ID. 800, 866, my brother's girlfriend who leaves a message nearly everytime she calls filling up our 20 message limit voice mail in one week... ignored and later erased.

If there is anything I would like to see is the ads on this site get zapped. They know what city you live in and it offers absolutely nothing useful: "57 year old mom looks 27", "Dermatologists hate her for giving this secret away." while showing some chick with some crap smeared on her face or "(city you live in)'s mom makes $72 an hour...". It they aren't annoying enough, they slow down the load time between pages.

augure - do you know what a proxy server is? USE ONE - then use a Firefox (NEVER USE IE) with java blocked (no-script) and ad-block active. Kill the ads before they even show on the screen. Fu ck the bas tards.

Augure -- For some reason, I get ads for Columbus Ohio. I've NEVER been in Columbus and don't plan to go, so I really don't need to know about their car insurance rates.

I just laugh at those 'before and after' pictures. They are so obviously not even the same person, it's ridiculous.

Remember the scam car warranty guy who had thousands of complaints against him? It went on for years, until he had the bad luck to call Chuck Schumer. Once that happened, they shut him down in about 2 days. The FCC had the audacity to crow that they'd had thousands of complaints about him!

No, legit companies do NOT comply with the do-not-call-registry. They never explain how they got your number or prove you did have a business relationship with them. It's impossible to prove one way or the other so they just keep calling. The only way to stop them is with the federal government.

Yeah first thing I did was put myself on the do not call list both house and cell I still get 6 calls a day.

A lot of the callers aren't even in the US. I googled the "Card services" number once and I think it was in Canada. I was ready to start an international incident. lol

No they don't.

Quark,

Sounds like they are listening based on this article...

You'd be surprised. If only 3% of people actually listen to a telemarketer without hanging-up and that telemarketer gets roughly 100 calls per day (I say "gets" because he's just sitting at a desk waiting for his headset to beep; i.e. he has no control over the calling whatsoever), that's 3 potential sales a day for that one person. Multiply that by a dozen or so people on a call in one center, and that's 36 sales per day just at that one call center. That might not sounds like a lot, but considering that most of the things being sold via telemarketing are either expensive or subscription-related, even one sale is enough to pay a minimum-wage telemarketer for a day and still turn a profit.

That said, you're doing the right thing by just hanging-up. Some people go out of their way to verbally beat-up on these people, not realizing that they're just doing a @!$%#ty-ass job for minimum wage because the nearby Walmart wasn't hiring. In other words, these are regular people who, at least for the most part, are just as much victims of these companies as you are.

I'm with you on holding off the celebrations just yet. Got to give it some time to see if its for real or not. If there is the slightest tiny crack in the law, some smart guy will figure out how to skirt around it.

How many were enforced prior to this? Not enough to stop the calls. They could have stopped the calls if they had enforced the Do Not Call registry. I'm not hopeful unless the bill involves a lot of enforcement bite.

this raises a most interesting question ... there are thousands of shops making millions of calls .... who will be policed by whom? ... how many people, with what kind of authority? ... budget? .... with the poewer to levy heavy fines and the political will to make them stick?

All of the laws in the world mean nothing if there is no practical enforcement mechanism in place ... if the odds of actually paying a real price are so low as to be the same as being hit by lightening .. this is why the do not call list has not been more effective than it has (though in my experience it does make a difference, but only with large, visible companies) ...

... and do not even get me started about politicians once again making themselves exempt from the law ...

Do Not Call Registry doesn't mean anything to most of these robocallers - especially "Rachel at Credit Card Services"! How many times do I have to hang up on that phone call - it's been at least 35 times already

Well, not "nothing". They are monitoring Super Bowl halftime shows in case of another wardrobe malfunction.

Actually, what these companies were doing was legal until the FCC just changed the rules. While they're not perfect, having an FCC is a damn sight better than nothing.

I do this too. I also Google the numbers that I don't know and if there are complaints about them, they go on my phones reject list. Works for me!

A push poll is like someone asking you if you stopped beating you wife, and only lets you answer yes or no--if you sat tes, you are admitting that you DO currently beat her and if you say no, you are saying that you won't quit!

Push polls are particularly annoying because it can take a little while before you realize they're not a real poll. (Of course why am I doing even a real poll when I could be having dinner. I guess I was curious)

The questions started being along the lines of "John Doe released 100 convicted murderers last year so they could kill again. Do you APPROVE or DISAPPROVE...". Naturally I answered the 'wrong' way in all cases. This was a live operator, and after 10 minutes it started getting silly -- she said something quietly like "I know the questions are provocative, but I don't get paid unless we finish it."

"John Doe likes eating babies. Does this make you MORE or LESS likely to vote for John Doe?". And so on

it's interesting that the government wants to stop these calls, which is great, but what are the chances they will stop all the junk mail from coming through the post office? this is the paper equivalent to robotcalls.....but it is the government doing it!!! i just think it's a bit hypocritical.

ditto here but it still rings an annoying 5 times at least. There goes the nap I'm awake and pissed.

most cell phones have "airplane mode" so that you can turn off calling features. That way no calls come in at 3am, but the alarm clock function will still get you up in the morning.

Worse I don't even have a credit card so why is member services calling me.

It is ridiculous that a call to your phone cost you any money. If there was a pay system I would like change it is that one. How is it that you get charge for someone else calling you and American's at large are compliant about it. No other country I have to has such a stupid scheme going. What's worst is that you're not even getting better service for it. Paying for minutes is ridiculous, it should even be criminal.

I am not usually mad at the telemarketer it's a job and a whole lot better than someone just collecting welfare. However, I am mad at the angencies who are selling my information. May they burn in a fire and brimstone like biblical way. Many of these corporation do anything to make a buck but their own services aren't better. Just makes me all green like an angry Bruce Banner, paging Lou Ferrigno!

Exactly! How is a politician any different than anybody else trying to sell you something? I don't want calls from charities, either. I give what I want when I want, and don't trust people asking for money over the phone.

There should be no exemptions for political or charitable organizations, including polling services. The only exemptions should be for reverse-911 calls by governmental institutions and by schools to parents of enrolled students. Period. That's all. Every other call requires explicit written authorization.

I live in apartment no dummy I don't need yard services. pest services or painting.

You can also blame Google, they provide a service which has just a few phone numbers which show up on Caller ID, none of which are the original caller but belong to Google. There should be a law preventing this kind of proxy.

Well I onlly know people in 4 states any call from the other 46 is automatically not answered. Also if it is going to be unavailable someone I do know has to call me first to tell me to expect it.

I'm on the federal Do Not Call list, and whenever a charity or a political organization calls me, I report them. If everybody did this then maybe the FCC and FTC would get it through their heads that those calls are just as annoying as the "commercial" telemarketing calls.

I'd really like it if they'd do this for bill collectors calling a business number. A co-worker used my desk phone to call the company she makes her car payments to. When she got behind on her payments, that company called my desk a minimum of 10 times a day. My requests for them to stop calling the number went unheeded to the point where I had to shut my ringer off and make everyone that needed to contact me do so via my personal cell phone or by e-mail.

Crying Shame, what that company is doing is already illegal. The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act bars them from calling once they have been told that your employer doesn't allow that type of call. And since you KNOW who is calling, you (or your supervisor) could call the offending company and read them the riot act. They are impacting your ability to do your job!